My December
by Kiana Caelum
Summary: Cougar Redfern receives an unexpected Christmas gift, and the perils of mistletoe are revealed.
1. Chapter One

A short, festive something; the second (and final) part will be out shortly before New Years'. This story is set some four years after Chimera, and before Ripples. I'm about halfway through the next part of Ripples, and Yesteryear. Happy Christmas :) I hope you all had a fabulous time.

**Disclaimer**: Any characters / clan-names you recognise from the books belong to LJ Smith. All else is created by the strange beastie that is my imagination.

**Spoilers**: Chimera, previous Fires of Fate stories, the Nightworld books.

**Lyrics:** The sweet, melancholy "My December" by Linkin Park.

I hope you enjoy reading :) Your opinions would be much loved.

**My December**

_This is my December; these are my snow covered dreams,  
This is me pretending this is all I need._

Snowflakes had iced over on his eyelashes, and when he blinked, crystals glittered and were snatched away by the jangling wind.

He walked in the cold because it didn't really touch him. He was old enough to shut it off, to let the ice and the snow blast right through him as if he was mist, letting the brittle biting wind slip through him unnoticed. He'd never been able until now; the brutal implacability of winter had always infuriated him before, made his temper roll and boil.

But his temper was quelled, reduced to ashes that stirred and wafted occasionally, as if to remind him that his passion had once been all of him.

Cougar Redfern walked through the snow with his head up, and his eyes wide, a flash of fire in a white world. Snow and sky seemed one mad whirl, and even his own body seemed to have numbed and melded into the chaotic, pure landscape.

Thoughts tumbled over in his mind like the snowflakes whipping around him. The call. The phone call from Blue. And the little ball that seemed to have lodged in his chest ever since, wrapping icy tendrils around his heart until he was frozen, transparent, invisible.

* * *

The phone startled Cougar Redfern from sleep, shrilling out into the darkness of his room.

He groped for the receiver, rolling over in a tangle of sheets to try and stop the godawful noise. Squinting through heavy eyelids, he groaned at the alarm clock, numerals flashing neon-green as if to offend him further; three a.m., too damn early. The December ice had pervaded even the warmth of his house, and he huddled in the covers, trying to keep as much of himself warm as possible.

Cursed thing...his hand closed on the phone, and he wrenched it to his ear.

"What?"

Buttermilk smooth, the voice oozed into his ears. "And good morning to you, dear brother."

The snarl had escaped Cougar Redfern before he could stop himself. "It may be morning, but it isn't even close to good. What the hell do you want?"

Alert now, he wriggled into a sitting position, gold eyes checking the room really was empty, and took the opportunity to dig out the crossbow he kept down the side of the bed. One too many midnight visitors – well, hostile ones, he was all for the friendly kind – had made him paranoid.

Blue Malefici's lazy laughter fizzled down the line, with that cruel edge to it that said his amusement was entirely down to someone else's discomfort. "A word."

"You've had at least ten, get to the point," he snapped back. His relationship with his half-brother was one of deep and mutual hatred, kept simmering by Blue's endless fascination with trying to ruin any happiness Cougar had ever glimpsed.

"I want to talk to you."

"You are."

A wave of irritation, sparkling electric blue, arced through Cougar's mind; if he could feel Blue's emotions, his half-brother was either very close, or very emotional.

Well, Blue had the emotional range of an amoeba, so close it was. Close, damn it, and that meant danger. Cougar pointed the crossbow at the window, his night vision showing him nothing but the thin pre-dawn light trickling through the panes, reflecting from the expanse of snow outside.

"Talk to you in person. I take it one of your friends has the group braincell at the moment." Blue's withering tone was nothing new; even when they had been growing up, he'd been a cynical, smug fiend. Time had iced him, and power had given him a level of arrogance rivalled only by cats and celebrities. "I need...advice."

"From me," Cougar said flatly. It was some kind of trap, some kind of bizarre Christmas present. One year, Blue had sent him a poisoned turkey. Another, a holly wreath with spring-loaded blades. "You. Want. Advice. From me."

"Correct, for once." Another surge of emotion; frosty resentment, tracing delicate patterns over the annoyance, and Cougar caught almost a whisper of his little brother's thoughts, like the threads of a prayer far away. Nothing holy about this though, only themost profane."Don't think I'm happy about this. I'd sooner take up a career as a cheerleader."

The terrifying image of Blue waving pom-poms slid through Cougar's head before he could stop himself. "I think ra-ra skirts are just your style."

"Therese said that," Blue said dryly. Had that been a joke? My god, had his horror of a brother actually acquired a sense of humour? "A warning. Watch out for mistletoe."

Cougar blinked. This conversation was getting more surreal by the second. "Okay, enough of the cryptic crap. Who are you, and what have you done with the real Blue? Explain why you're ringing me at stupid hours in the morning when even I, without the group braincell, am asleep."

"Spending yuletide on your lonesome? How dreadfully dull." Lisa had once said, in a gross misnomer, that Blue had a saucy streak. Privately, Cougar thought if his brother couldn't kill it, he'd try to seduce it, then kill it. "After all, 'tis the season to be jolly."

"And I have no intention of discussion my damn jollies with you. Explain the mistletoe comment."The lamiasmothered a yawn on the arm holding the crossbow, and decided to put it down after nearly losing an eye. Blue wasn't in one of his homicidal moods.

"Let's just say rumour has it that someone in K'Shaia has sent you a very special present. Packaged exactly as you like them, I believe, and their contract was sealed with a not-so-loving kiss."

"What?" Cougar had a weird mental picture of a contract with a bright red lipstick mark on it.

"A steel kiss, brother."

Like a string of lights clicking on, Cougar understood. "Someone's sent me an assassin for Christmas?"

"Yes, Paraphrase Boy."

"Was it you?" was all he could think to say. There wasn't anyone else with a fervent desire to see him dead. Well, fervent enough to actually try.

Blue sounded slightly surprised at himself. "Actually...no. If I wanted you dead, I'd do it myself. Good craftmanship is so hard to find."

"That's so...reassuring," he said, not bothering to keep the bite from his voice. It was a comfort in a way, that Blue wouldn't trust anyone else to do the job, and a compliment of the highest, oddest order; he was actually considered dangerous enough to merit the Demon Fury himselfto kill him. "Any idea who?"

"None whatsoever. I don't keep track of everyone you've offended - it's a full time job, and it just doesn't pay. And frankly, who cares?"

Me, Cougar thought. I care a lot about people trying to send me to the great beyond. "Well, thank you for your helpful and not-at-all vague or cryptic warning. And I'll look forward to this year's present – what is it this year, a tinsel garrotte?"

"At least mine are creative," retorted Blue. The only person on the planet who would describe an exploding Christmas pudding as creative; that was a little more flambé than Cougar liked. "Your gift last year was atrocious. Honestly, a kitten? A fluffy ginger kitten called Schnookums?"

Actually, he'd thought that was a minor stroke of genius at the time. What better way to undermine Blue's standing in the assassin community than by sending a bundle of adorable cuteness to his office in Memphis? And of course, he could put a jewelled collar on it, and stroke it should he ever install that fabled shark tank. Not that anything out there had a nastier bite than Blue walkinga killing ground.

As it turned out, Cougar had missed one small fact about assassins.

"Don't sound so derisive," he said coolly, flashing a fangy grin at the phone. "Toya told me Schnookums sleeps in your desk drawer and all your minions coo over him."

Yes, even the Nightworld's most vicious murderers had a soft spot for gooey-eyed, purring kittens.

"Did she tell you I've trained him to rip out the windpipe of anyone I find sufficiently vexing?"

Oh. That might explain it.

"No. She didn't mention that bit." Well, it was too late to stop the pet shop delivering the six chinchillas. He'd just have to hope they couldn't be turned into furry killing machines. "Are you seeing any of the family this year?"

A polite way of asking if Blue planned to kill off any more of the Satiari enclave, the dank, medieval hellhole they'd grown up in.

"No, but I'll be dropping in on your soiree on News Years' Eve," he was informed. There was a definite hint of smugness in Blue's voice.

"Who the hell invited you?" he snapped back. The New Years party at Cougar's nightclub, The Chill, was a strictly private affair for friends, family and assorted associates. He'd reluctantly agreed to Chatoya inviting some of the more normal assassins, on the proviso they left their profession at the door, and the Pack had wrangled their way in, but that aside...

"Tamara Slone. She seemed to feel she owed me something." There was no inflection in his voice then; Blue had a what Cougar could only describe as a friendship with Tamara Slone, one that had sprung up unexpectedly when Tam found out her medical school was in the same city as Blue's headquarters.

All she would say was that there had been trouble, and Blue had ended it. Shadows slid across her eyes whenever it was mentioned, filling them with a dark intensity.

"Fair enough," he said grumpily. Christmas was the one time of year when he and Blue called a jittery truce, and had done ever since the events of three years ago. "The rules are the same for you as everyone else – leave your business and your problems at the door. Be festive."

"I shall be positively merry. But I won't be staying long; places to go, more interesting people to see," his brother said, and hung up, as he always did, without saying goodbye.

Cougar stared into the gloom.

Blue was coming to Ryars Valley. Wonderful.

* * *

The Redfern boys. Everyone knew them, and everyone respected them, reluctantly or otherwise. Some liked them; many loathed them.

But Chatoya Irkil thought she was the only one who loved them both.

There was a sameness to their faces, both had that devastating bone structure with clean lines, high cheekbones and a full, scornful mouth that could break into startling smiles. The same build, long and lean with an easy, predatory strength. But there the resemblance ended, and the differences that had always divided them began.

Blue Malefici was her soulmate, and he walked with the winter. He had always fascinated her, because there was almost no expression to him; pale and blank as marble, his eyes a boundless blue vortex to match that shocking cobalt hair. Ever mocking, dark humour lay beneath his every word, meaning twisted and snarled until she was unsure and afraid. And he was dangerous.

Sweet goddess, he was so dangerous.

Her love for him was a tempestuous thing, savage and wonderful, destructive and delightful. He was rarely tender, almost never compassionate, but perceptive beyond belief. He understood her like no one else, and he used that knowledge to wound her again and again, yet...sometimes to comfort her, to cherish her - only to betray her again.

Lovers on opposing sides of a war, they played the same games to different resolutions, and as the years danced past, she found herself changing, adapting, losing pieces of herself she'd barely discovered.

And Cougar.

Cougar.

"Cougar?" Jepar Jubatus grinned, glancing up quickly from where he was wrapping presents extremely badly. "I got him the complete Lord of the Rings set. He keeps saying how cool it would be if the characters popped into our world. I think he just wants to take on Aragorn."

"I'd take him on anytime," she quipped, and waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

The shapeshifter groaned. "Puh-lease! As it is, Alisha practically soaks the floor in drool when it's on." There was affectionate exasperation in his voice, a softness to his smile. "What did you get him?"

"Nothing yet," she said mildly. She wanted to give Cougar something that would make his face light up, make those hazel eyes turn to that wonderful, flaming gold, bring out the sweetness in his nature that he tried so hard to hide.

There was a vulnerability to Cougar that he couldn't quite conceal, even by throwing up a prickly, angry front that she'd bypassed long ago. However fierce his temper, it was rarely aimed at her, and even then there was too much hurt behind it for her to be truly upset. It had taken her a long time to realise just how good a friend he was, how often he had put himself on the line for her and never mentioned it.

And how much she valued him.

He'd told her once that he loved her, and she had walked away to a life as sharp and hard as a sword, walking into the winter's arms, because though she loved him dearly, she wasn't in love with him.

But time had wrought many changes, and now she wondered...

She wondered what might have been.

"You'd better hurry," Jepar commented, winding yards of silver string around a misshapen lump. "Shops close soon."

"I know, I know," she said tiredly. "And I have still have to get a dress for the party."

"You'll look fantastic in anything," he reassured, his voice warm. "Why don't you wear that disturbingly slinky thing Cougar got you for your birthday? You haven't worn it yet, and we're all dying to see you in it. He spent ages trying to find it."

He had? "I didn't know that." When she'd asked, the lamia had just shrugged and mumbled about a last-minute bargain.

"Wear it," Jepar ordered. "After all, you want to impress your flunkies."

After five years, her friends had come to terms with her position as the head of Pursang, one of the Nightworld's three elitist organisations known best for their excellent, expensive assassins. But not one of them liked it, and she knew they kept a informal eye on her through their various associates and families.

"Fine, fine," she conceded. "But only if you promise not to wear those flashing reindeer antlers."

He pouted. "But...c'mon, they're great!"

They were horrific. "No."

"You're no fun," he grumbled, and held up a football with a faintly desperate look. "How the hell do I wrap this?"

"Imbecile," she sighed, and went to rescue him from his plight.

* * *

One week later, Blue stole in with the last snowfall of the year, a thief in the soft, thick flakes that filled the streets and greyed the sky into one endless, formless wash. A thief dressed in the winter, moving lightly as a breath of icy air, pausing, in arrested motion a sharply-cut pattern of blue and white.

The lazy rumble of the crowds inside the nightclub drifted to him, and he picked out a few voices he knew from the babble.

There was almost nothing gentle about Blue Malefici, from the clear, cutting gaze to the flaring white of his skin, sunless and serene. Except perhaps for the lush curve of his mouth, tilted now in a sardonic smile, lending a little life to those angular features.

He knew his beauty in the same way a shark knows the ripples of the waters it swims in, knew it as camouflage and weapon and diversion; and he wielded it carefully, with thought rather than delight, knowing where a swift glance might spark desire and a light touch make the poisonous promises he would only break.

There was a golden haze behind the drawn shades, and footprints leading to and from the door, transient imprints that were beginning to fill in as the last drifts fell. As he walked to the door, his feet left no mark on the clean snow, but he traced a word in the frost on the door before lifting a hand to knock.

* * *

The place was thrumming and convivial. Christmas music was playing loudly on the stereo, and people were already up and dancing in Santa hats and tinsel. Mulled wine was being dished out freely, and drunk with abandon, the musky scent of cinnamon wafting through the room; Aspen Martin was already giggly, and entertaining people with stories about Circle Strange's wicked and wild days. Lisa Ochai was cuddling up to Vaje Chusson on one of the low-slung sofas, while Jepar – wearing a truly horrendous pair of fairy wings – was tangoing clumsily with one of the Pack.

Cougar cast a quick, expert eye over the gathering. Yep, everyone had a drink and a friend, the buffet was stocked with junk food galore and even the bouncers were looking relaxed.

"Is it wise to have Pursang here?" The throaty Cajun accent belonged to Alex Morelli, the leader of the Pack.

"About as wise as it is having you here," he replied, turning to face the slight wolf. Alex was a bundle of highly intelligent trouble, and not shy about making his presence felt. "Don't start anything, especially not with them."

"Would I, cher?" the werewolf said innocently, widening his eyes. "Do tell me, is that delicious mermaid of yours going to be here tonight?"

Alex's fascination with Ryar ap Sangager was topped only by her raging embarrassment that he knew who she was – a dragon princess from the Nightworld's dark and decadent past. "Not tonight. Christmas and New Year don't really mean anything to her, you know that."

The werewolf shrugged one shoulder. "I can hope. By the by, I'd watch out for Elayne tonight. She's determined to sink her claws into you."

Literally? Cougar thought, edgy at once. Elayne St. John was a curvy beauty of a wolf, and as he glanced over to where she stood sipping at a drink, her hair a mass of unruly brown curls, their eyes met, and she winked.

She was new to Alex's pack, still half an outsider here, if a showy and confident one in that floaty, jade-green dress that showed off her body to maximum effect. Cougar had noticed her in The Chill before, and felt the unwelcome heat of her eyes when she looked at him, as if he was a particularly scrumptious appetizer she was eager to sample.

"She's not my type," he said politely.

Alex laughed, though it was half a growl. "Doesn't matter, Redfern. She wants you, and if I were you, I'd give in now because Elayne doesn't like being denied."

"What's the worst she can do?" She was still staring, running her finger round the rim of her wineglass in a thoughtful way. Yes, she was pretty, delicate as spiralling stems of the wineglasses, but he'd given his heart away a long time ago on a hopeless love, on a yearning that would ache through all the years of loneliness and forlorn wishing.

The werewolf's face was disbelieving. "Don't tell me you haven't heard."

"Heard what?"

"Elayne St John used to be known as the Baptist," a new voice said, one he knew all too well.

Blue's hair was dusted with snow that was already melting, though Cougar half-expected it to refreeze on the waves of ice emanating from his half-brother. His stare flicked up and down Alex, that considerate look that meant he was calculating the weight of his bones and the worth of his blood.

Alex raised his eyebrows, seemingly unfazed. "Ran across her in her previous incarnation, did you?"

Blue's slanting smile was bright and warm, his public persona. "Something of that ilk." He nodded to the werewolf. "Bane Malefici."

"Alex Morelli. Are you two related – you 're disturbingly alike, but the name...?"

Cougar gritted his teeth. Much as he loathed being compared to Blue in any way, he had to admit the similarity between them had increased with the years. "Half-brothers. Same mother. But you were saying about Elayne?"

"She used to work for one of the Furies," Alex said in a low voice, teeth bared, more wolfish than ever with his uncontrollable pelt of hair falling into his eyes, dark with strands of gold brightening it. "She won't say which one, but she put one ofmy Pack in the hospital for a month after she broke all the fingers in his hands with a silver hammer."

Shit. That didn't sound like the kind of woman who'd shy away from a steel kiss. "What did he do to deserve that?"

The werewolf's expression was neutral, but the tautness of his stance said something about it made him uneasy. "She won't tell. He won't tell."

"Convenient," remarked Blue.

"Thought I'd warn you." Alex's Artful Dodger grin lit his thin face. "I wouldn't resist too much if I were you." With a cheeky wave, he wandered off towards some other pack members.

Are you kidding? thought Cougar. She's not getting anywhere near me. Over my dead-no, over my kicking, screaming body.

"The Baptist?" he hissed at Blue. "That's a dreadful joke."

"We're assassins, not comedians," his brother drawled, snaffling a glass of mulled wine from a passing barman, and taking a sip. "She's one of K'Shaia's, certainly still works for them, and she likes to drown her victims, though unless she's going to dunk you in a vat of this revoltingly cheap wine, I suspect she'll just slip a knife between your ribs."

"You think it's her?"

Blue was scanning the crowds languidly, and several people were staring at him. Even in a chocolate-brown T-shirt and the most faded, ripped jeans in the place, Blue was devastating, and he knew it. There was a faint, curling smile turning up his mouth, and a false warmth in his eyes that Cougar knew he could turn on and off almost at will.

"It could be one of twenty people in this room," Blue said. "But the Baptist is the only one lying about belonging to the Furies."

"Lovely." He was a little tired of spending Christmas prodding all his presents to see if any of them was likely to take off his arm or give him some rather permanent breathing difficulties. He didn't want to spend New Year's Eve hiding from bounty hunters too. "What did you want advice about, anyway?"

That smile widened, the slow simmering grin of a panther. "A potential employee."

Huh? Nightfire's system for testing its potential butchers was rigorous, violent and vile, devised by Blue, for all those wannabe miniature Blues. "Why are you asking me? Toya or Aspen would be better."

Blue ignored him. "The man in question is a vampire. A relatively unknown vampire, but with powerful family connections, should he choose to use them. He's easily powerful enough for the Furies' needs, and the job we require him to do is morally – sound." He spat that last as if it tasted rancid. "In fact, it's a job our people aren't really qualified for. The problem is his honour. He's – not our greatest fan."

"What?" he said mockingly. "You mean he's not a fully subscribed member of the My Little Fury fan club?"

Roses would have withered under the coldness of Blue's eyes. "We need him to befriend a lady in France that we believe to be one of Sangager's daughters. He's well aware of the Burning Times, and has dealt with dragons before, which makes him ideally suited to the task."

"Why not send Ryar?" The instant he'd said it, Cougar knew it was a terrible idea. Ryar ap Sangager was a shy, gentle creature who was simply not built to deal with the subtleties and slyness of the modern Nightworld. Nor would she ever associate with the merciless Furies. "Scratch that, she'd never agree."

"Not to mention the fact she betrayed her entire family in the Burning Times." Blue arched one eyebrow. "I doubt they'll welcome her with open arms. Open fire, more likely."

"What do you want with Sangager's daughter?"

Blue smiled faintly. "That's none of your business, brother. Unless, of course, you take the job."

_And I...  
__Just wish that I didn't feel that there was something I'd missed._

* * *

Thanks for reading! Your thoughts would be adored. 


	2. Chapter Two

On-time update :) Paint me proud. The link to the thanks can be found up on the 'about me' type bit of my profile, because I can't put links in the text here for some infuriating reason. I hope you all have a fantastic new year, and keep any resolutions you make...at least for a week or two.

**Disclaimer**: The Nightworld is the creation and property of LJ Smith – I borrow it to use, abuse and maim it only. My characters are nuts; that's life, alas.

**Rating**: PG-13

**Spoilers:** The Nightworld concepts generally, Chimera, previous Fires of Fate stories.

**Lyrics**: The most excellent Tabitha's Secret: _Forever December_.

Happy New Year, and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

**My December – Part Two**

_And I can remember  
Forever December  
The centre of dying – the heart of the pain._

He was shocked.

No, he was gobsmacked. Of course, he'd dealt with dragons; Ryar ap Sangager often amused herself in The Chill, and of course, there had been that business – that damn, damn business that they still didn't talk about, and he had dealt with the Furies too. It was just the two together that seemed so – crazy.

Cougar didn't know what to think. The Furies were a byword for fear; they were the Night World's ghoulish tales, their monsters under the bed. And now they wanted his help. Him!

They, who had killed his mother. Who had destroyed his friends; who had murdered and meddled, and for nothing but a cheque.

"You look like someone's been force-feeding you rat poison," remarked a tipsy Aspen Martin, wandering over. "Or was it just seeing Blue again? He does that to a lot of people."

"It was Blue," he said sullenly. "He wants me to work for the Furies."

"Yeah, I know, he mentioned it," the lamia said, blinking mistily. Cougar put out a hand to steady him as he swayed. "What the hell did you put in the wine?"

"...alcohol?" he suggested sweetly. "I thought you didn't drink."

Aspen raised a finger. "You're rrrrright! That's why my head feels so fuzzy." The dual coloured eyes were gently crossing. "Mind you, you try looking after my kid, you'd drink too."

"I babysat your damn brat," Cougar reminded him, fighting to hide a grin. It was impossible not to be cheered up by Aspen's amiable childishness. "He broke my microwave."

"So you did. You taught him some words I didn't want him hearing." Aspen paused. "Well, you did, or maybe Vaje. Or Toya. Or possibly Celia. Someone did."

Aspen's boy – well, his nephew, really - had the face of an angel and a set of genetics which were funnelled directly from Satan's smouldering loins. Surpassing even Thom's sister for sheer mischief, no one had ever babysat more than once.

"So Martin," he said, switching the empty wine glass Aspen had for orange juice, "who decided I'd made an ideal emissary for the Furies?"

Aspen smiled sleepily. "That would be me."

"You bastard."

The lamia's eyes sharpened to cat-cool attention, and Cougar reminded himself that Aspen had headed Pursang. However dumb or debilitated he acted, it was nothing but a practised façade. "Try gratitude instead."

"Gratitude? For chucking me into that nest of vipers?"

"For persuading them you'd be more use alive than dead." There was an indefinable change to Aspen's stance; his temper was rising like lava bubbling up through a volcano, a warm warning on Cougar's senses. "You know a lot about them, Redfern. Too many people do. They're not nameless and faceless, and that's worrying the people high up."

"Since when? Blue doesn't care, Toya's learned we can look after ourselves, and we don't mess with K'Shaia."

The vampire hissed between his teeth, startlingly feline, and Cougar was reminded that there really was only a thin veneer hiding Aspen's savagery. Nothing could undo the damage that his family and Pursang had wrought between them; however well Aspen had glued the pieces of himself back together, the cracks still showed, gleaming and prickly.

"You think they're the only ones who matter? They're the most powerful, but there are others who'd gladly take their places. Especially in Pursang." Aspen kept his voice low, but his eyes were starting to glow, firefly glintsdarting in them. "Do you know what happens to people who find out about the Furies, Redfern? We kill them, or we recruit them. You've had a few years grace because several of our plans went askew – vermin wars messing things up, some fiend rigging the election, the shake-up in Pursang – but they're out for you now."

That was the longest speech Cougar had ever heard him make. "I thought you'd left."

A disgusted look was his answer. "Yeah, they just wished me luck and waved me goodbye. You don't ever leave, Redfern, you just...aren't about as much. Toya keeps me informed, and so do a couple of others."

"So they want to recruit me," he mused softly.

"No, they want to kill you. I convinced them to recruit you." It was worrying how blithely he said that.

"Didn't Toya say anything?"

"Everyone knows you've been friends for years. Won't wash. Whereas me – well, everyone knows Blue and I grew up together, and I'm still alive, which means a lot in the Furies, and okay, I'm bonkers, but I've got an eye for talent."

As per usual, Aspen's guileless phrasing made Cougar half-smile. "And I'm talent."

The lamia blinked. "Not like that! Blue thought about recruiting you once, you know. Way back when. You could be good at the job, if you didn't have so many scruples." Cougar noted his tone: as though morality was a mere inconvenience. It probably was to Aspen, for despite his supposed reformation, he still had a hand in some less than wholesome business. "Redfern – the job's easy, it's clean, and I hear Sangager's daughter is sexy as hell."

"Yeah, I'm really into women ten thousand times my age," he drawled. "And if I do this for the Furies, that's it? No more knives in the night?"

"Uhhh..." Aspen looking cute and abashed was never a good thing. Never. "They've – kind of told their trainees to try their skills on you."

"Wh-hat!" Pursang were sending their vicious, bloodthirsty darlings to try and kill him? Well, it explained the large number of noisy night-time visitors...but why only half-grown kids?

Aspen raised his hands defensively. "Only the novices. You're part of their training program now."

He mouthed furiously, for all the world like an outraged carp. Lovely. Just lovely. "I'm...what?"

"It's your own fault for putting all those traps up."

"They were for Blue!" he said indignantly. After Blue's last home visit, Cougar had rigged up his house with a number of ingenious snares, with help from his diabolically inventive friends.

A shrug. "Pursang were so impressed they decided to use your house as a display ground. They figured you could handle anyone who actually got in."

"That's..." he spluttered. "That's incredibly not the point! I want to be able to sleep unmolested in my own home!"

Aspen's wicked schoolboy grin lit up his thin face. "Really? Not what I heard."

"Oh god," he moaned, horrified. Keeping Blue out had somehow led to fifty curious assassins trying to get in. This was _unbelievable_. Absolutely unbelievable. "Fine. Aside from all your puppets, no trouble?"

"Take the job, no trouble." Aspen looked thoughtful. "Blue provided a list of what he'd personally do to anyone who bothered you afterwards."

Blue did owe him a favour, and despite their internal feuds, there was an odd protectiveness between them that Cougar had reluctantly acknowledged after bizarrely managing to save Blue's life not so very long ago. If only because he felt that if anyone was to rid the world of his detached, destructive half-brother, it should be him.

Still – it was very unlike Blue, and Aspen had to detail half the list before Cougar was entirely satisfied. The precise descriptions certainly were Blue, down to the elaborate promises of unleashing Schnookums.

"I'll take it," he said wearily. It would be less trouble. Maybe getting away would even do him some good; he'd been in Ryars Valley for nearly ten years of his life, and that was a long time in a place as small and snug as this. "God, I'll take it. Just let him know."

"Shall do," Aspen perked up, gazing over Cougar's shoulder. "Hey, say what you like about our Lady Fury – Chatoya knows how to make an entrance."

She certainly did.

* * *

"It's busy," said the twin on her left, in a warm Scottish brogue that didn't match the way she gazed at the crowds, assessing and counting. "Too many warm bodies." 

"Dangerous," murmured the one on her right. "Do you trust these people?"

"Some," Chatoya answered mildly, waving at the Pack members she knew, sighing as she saw that while Jepar had abandoned the antlers, he'd managed to acquire a pair of fairy wings instead.The shapeshifterwas a spangly blond blur as he wiggled happily in time to the jingling Christmas music. He had the most atrocious taste.

"Foolish," the one on her left said. The two moved in step, clockwork soldiers that didn't need much at all to wind them up. Chatoya had brought them not for her protection but for theirs; they were dangerously arrogant, and offending too many of Pursang's older members.

They made a startling sight, flanking her in perfect symmetry, moving in unison. Alone, neither would have turned heads; both diminutive women with long honey-blond hair that had been pinned up into elaborate loops and twists, and the same icy-green eyes that never thawed, even for each other, but it was the scars that always made people stare.

Both had a deep purple ligature around their neck, and when she had inquired quietly about it to Ross, who'd found them in Scotland, he'd shrugged. "The Lachlan enclave put silver wire around their necks and strung them from the nearest trees. An inventive trick." Approval had been in his voice, none of the mute horror she had felt. "They'd murdered their siblings and eaten half the bodies."

"And you felt they were Pursang material," she'd said sharply.

His china-blue eyes had gleamed, unnervingly clear and perceptive. "For that bit of pettiness? No. But they've been behind a most beautiful stream of murders in the highlands – the artistry, lady witch, the artistry was sublime." Yet – he seemed nervous, shifting in his seat like an errant child.

She could never grow used to the fact Ross was a connoisseur of death; that he drank it in as he did the fine art and architecture of his European provinces, and if he could, he would frame it and cherish it evermore, revelling in a blood-streaked beauty that she simply could not see in the pathos of gored heaps that were all Pursang left.

"They're older than usual," she had remarked. Pursang tended to recruit from children, with one or two exceptions of ancient and powerful Nightpeople they felt they could persuade. "And you're jumpy."

He drew in a sharp breath, his mouth twisting bitterly. "Yeah. There's something about them I don't like." Bemusement crawled into his voice, and emphasised the innocence of his cherubic face. "They remind me of Blue."

She'd glanced over at the girls, sat demurely in the corner with their beautiful and blank faces. Neither spoke, nor so much as looked at each other, but she couldn't help but feel something had passed between them. "How so?"

He'd struggled for words, as he so often did. "I don't know," was all he could say. "They'll be good, lady witch, worth all the effort, but get them away from here and get them away from me."

Baffled, she had, but the longer she spent in the twins' company, the more she felt the strangeness that had niggled Ross so. They were eerie anyway, with their identical inflectionless voices, and the sameness of their every gesture, but there was something beyond that.

Tonight, however, she intended them to be visible and uncanny, and to draw the eyes away from her.

After all, she had a poisoned promise to keep.

* * *

"Bloody hell," Aspen whispered. "She brought those British tykes." 

Cougar had noted the twin sisters, mirroring each other in a graceful dance, but had dismissed them quickly. His eyes were on Chatoya. She was wearing the dress he'd bought her for her birthday, and he felt a hot satisfaction at how perfectly it fit; it was a purple velvet halterneck that he'd had tailormade, and it emphasised the slenderness of her body andher white shoulders, rising from the material like Thetis from the waves.

"Our lady's looking good," the lamia commented, lifting his glass to her. "Wasn't that your gift, Redfern?"

"Yeah," he said, examining her face, so familiar to him. There were new lines pencilled about her mouth, and shadows under her eyes that worried him. She'd been wrestling Pursang's demons for four years now, and it was taking its toll. So much of the laughter had drained away from her; she spent too much times closeted in meetings, running from dark city to distant enclave, and it showed. Her skin had lost its tan, and she'd grown too thin.

She was turning to talk to Vaje Chusson, who'd detached himself from Lisa to lecture her, by the looks. The coyote was stabbing a finger at her, frustration on his face.

"He looks just like he does when he's telling off Zane," remarked Aspen, shaking his head. "Chatoya detests him mothering her, but someone has to do it."

Startled, Cougar stared at him. "Huh?"

The lamia gave him a look of exasperation. "You think we can't see that she's burning herself out, Redfern? She's not made for Pursang's life – we've seen it before, when we've chosen people who weren't...right. You can't have a heart and stay sane. Not really."

There was a terrible sadness in Aspen's eyes; the weight of knowing that however hard he tried, he would never quite fit in with his human soulmate. They make them to kill, Cougar thought, but they break them in every other regard.

"Then get her out," he hissed.

Aspen's expression became pitying. Pity – from him. That was unexpected, and worrying. "We need her too much." He smiled faintly. "You haven't been there, Redfern, you have no idea how things have changed. She's strong, in a way I wasn't, and Therese isn't. Someone's standing up to Blue at last, and Pursang is different because of it. I...I don't want things to be like they were."

"What do you want?" he said, storing this new information away. There had been care in Aspen's voice; Toya mattered to him. Maybe she mattered to all these divine, deadly assassins whose eyes followed her with such avidness.

His face became wistful, terribly young then. "I know people like us can't really have the fairytale ending," he said, so quietly Cougar had to strain to hear him. "But she makes us think we can. And that's something."

"Not enough though," snarled Vaje Chusson, stomping over to join them. He look like he wanted to rip someone's head clean off, and Cougar hoped it wasn't going to be him. "She's so bloody stubborn!"

"What happened?" he asked.

Vaje's eyes narrowed into two orange lines. "I told her she needs to take a damn break. She told me to shove it. You fill in the blanks." He tilted his head suddenly, his expression altering subtly into calculation. "Better yet – you convince her, Redfern. If anyone can, it's you."

"Me?"

"Use that famous Redfern charm. And get your snake of a brother away from her. He's been tormenting her, and if he carries on..." Vaje's voice mutated into a low, rolling growl that made Aspen edge backwards.

Cougar felt the anger bubble up from his ribcage. "Has he now."

"Don't get me wrong," the coyote said tiredly. "No more so than usual. But – she needs someone to look after her, and Blue only wants to play with her, and pick her apart piece by piece. You love her. Why shouldn't it be you?"

To hear the truth spoken so brutally shocked him, dampening the anger. "Does everyone know?"

There was apprehension in the way Vaje stood. He was afraid, Cougar realised, and afraid of him. When had assassins started worrying about...then the thought fell into place. He supposed they saw him as one of him now, really, if Blue had offered him a job. Even though he wasn't.

"It's...obvious," the shapeshifter said tactfully. "To me, anyway. I'm pretty good at recognising unrequited love." There was a rawness in those words that Cougar didn't ask about.

"I didn't know," volunteered Aspen, wide-eyed. "But I'll keep it to myself. You don't want Blue getting wind of it."

In a moment of mutual paranoia, all three swung round to the corner where Blue had been accosted by the lovely, impassive twins. One of them was stroking his face, and the other was staring at him with such hunger Cougar felt chilled. Poor Blue.

Poor Blue? What the hell was he thinking?

Those inhuman azure eyes stared back, and then Blue's voice broke into his mind, faintly annoyed.

_I think I shall be on my way. Pursang's darlings are despicably dull, not to mention the fact they're mauling me, and I have no urge to spend my entire evening talking shop_.

_Don't let the door hit you on the way out,_ he sent sweetly. _It was nice of you to drop in and not horribly murder or mutilate anyone._

_The night is young yet_.There was promise in the dark-washed words. Already Blue was slithering away from the twin assassins like a silken shadow, the crowds parting easily before him. _And I have an engagement elsewhere which will be far more profitable_.

He didn't so much as glance at Chatoya, and neither did she appear to notice him. Cougar wondered if this steely indifference was real, or another of the endless charades that the Furies acted out, but from the sudden stiffness in her shoulders, he thought not.

"Trust him not to spend the evening singing Auld Lang Syne," muttered Vaje when Cougar told them.

Aspen beamed. "Everyone knows it's good luck to welcome in the New Year with a sacrifice."

"A thousand years ago, maybe!" Vaje was looking at the vampire with faint disbelief. "Boy, you have got to get your head screwed on right. You're getting married in a couple of years, remember?"

Staring through the space between them, his eyes met Chatoya's – and in them he saw the old sweetness he had been so fond of. How often had he seen that look? How many hundreds of times had he seen her face, alight with curiosity, mobile in laughter, and too often lately, engraved with sorrow? How often had he stood by, watching her not from afar but from beside her, aware of every nuance of her body language, the way she spoke too known, both painful and beloved.

He wondered how long this could go on, how long he would love and hurt for it.

Cougar left the pair to their bickering. He needed some air, he wanted to be away from the crazed crowds and the never-ending intrigues and backstabbing of it all. Damn it, he didn't want to be tangled up in this world, but it seemed he had no choice, no choice at all.

* * *

"A moment." 

Elayne St. John held up a hand to the Pack members she was talking to, and they fell silent, instantly. She loathed their cowardice, as she loathed everything about their grubby, hungry existence, but she felt the fizzling of their fear at the edge of her senses. Tender, overwhelming, it reassured her; fear was a presence she had felt about her all her life, and without it, she was bereft.

There he was. Cougar Redfern, making his way through the crowds with a quip here and a smile here that didn't really hide the urgency in his movements. Something wild that should never have been caged, she thought solemnly, and now spent all his time searching for escape.

There was a mix of rage and defencelessness in him that she was drawn to, that she recognised. She thought it would taste good under her teeth, and trifled with the idea of luring him out to the lake and letting the waters wash away everything except the fear; that would be left, tingeing his flesh, and-

But those weren't her orders. No water. No baptisms. No consecration.

She moved to intercept him, sliding her body between gaps in the crowd. Ignoring the hesitant invitation of a vampire nearby, she caught Cougar before he reached the door, her fingers closing around his arm.

He spun, and there was mistrust in his eyes. "What?"

Elayne smiled, letting her face warm with something of her hunger. "I just want to say thank you for inviting us."

The Redfern pride was there, shaping every inch of that aristocratic face, from the way he looked down his nose at her to the slight, contemptuous curl of his mouth. "Alex invited himself, and the rest of you."

"You could have kicked us out," she said with a self-deprecating glance. "Not without a fight, but you could have."

His lips quirked. She'd heard he liked feistiness. "I can think of better ways to spend my evening."

Her laugh was perfect; smoky, and filled with the slightest hint of seduction. She had practiced it for hours. "So can I."

"Does it involve drowning people?" he said pleasantly, jolting her. "The Baptist? Isn't that it?"

How...she recovered quickly. "It's a name, and I didn't choose it. And I don't intend to drown anyone." If only because it had been explicitly forbidden.

"No?" He smiled, tightly, and she saw the first reflections of Blue Malefici in his face, flitting under his skin like a deadly haunting. "Keep away from me, Elayne, and get out of the Pack."

"Or what?" she snarled, forgetting everything she was supposed to say and do.

He leaned in, so close she could smell him, filling her nostrils with nothing but searing fury, and not a trace of the fear she prized so much. "There is no or. Just do it."

She was left staring at empty space, the slam of the fire escape rattling in her ears long after his words had faded. The crowds seemed distant, as far from her as she was from humanity.

And for the first time, Elayne was afraid.

* * *

His breath whirled upwards in grey fog, drifting towards heaven. There was a certain cleanness, a sharply defined beauty to the night that matched the familiar lines of his pain, darkly defined, scored over and over into deep scars. The sky was as velvet-soft as Toya's dress, the same deep and plush indigo, starless, stunning. Against it, the snow was a blue-silver blanket, crunching a little under his feet. 

He knew the cold was hanging on the air, but he couldn't feel it. Still felt too much though.

I thought these things were supposed to fade, he thought with a dull wonder. How can it be that weeks pass, and I half-forget her, and then she appears and it's as if every moment is the moment I tell her I love her, and she tells me no?

Her refusal beat at him, again and again, gentle, implacable as the falling flakes.

He stooped and drew a heart in the snow, like he'd done as a child, and then scrubbed it out angrily. Child's games. He wouldn't write CR 4 CI inside it, that was someone else's suburban fantasy. That kind of romantic nonsense belonged to Jepar and Aspen, who loved with depth and simplicity, who'd found happiness and fought ferociously to keep it.

He turned to go back in, and froze.

Chatoya stood there like a dark desire, ankle deep in the unsullied snow with her hands clasped behind her back. Her hair was long and curling in the cold, tumbling about her shivering shoulders; she was so pale now, her skin a sunless camellia-white against that dark dress, so she seemed to have pulled down the sky to wrap herself in it. A witch, wearing midnight, her hair crowned with stars.

The simplicity and the beauty of it – of her – struck him hard.

Cougar drank her in like the purest blood he would ever taste, and thought of nothing else. No, he knew her face wasn't beautiful; her nose too long, her features too plain for the classical symmetry that captured eyes. But she had captured his heart, and he saw her through the intimate haze of their shared moments, she who had touched him so deeply, who he had loved so long.

Then she smiled tentatively, and the holiness of that moment passed.

"Alex said you were out here," she said, and tiptoed towards him, unsteady in the slippery snow as a newborn fawn. "What are you doing?"

"Getting some air." He eyed her, and then bent to scoop up a snowball – he flung it, and she yelped as it smashed into powdery pieces on her shoulder.

"You bastard!" she gasped, and not to be outdone, threw an even larger snowball back.

He dodged easily, grinning. "Language, Chatoya Irkil, language."

"I learned it all from you." She stuck out her tongue, and wrapped her arms about herself. "Couldn't you have found somewhere warmer to loiter?"

"You didn't have to come out here," he pointed out. "I wasn't expecting company."

Unfazed, she shrugged. "I wanted to see you – and to show you something."

"Does the something involve you taking off that devilish number?" he said innocently, giving her the toe-curling Redfern smile that he'd been informed would melt nuclear ice. It was easier if he kept this light, kept it from being too serious.

"No." Her voice was steady, and guarded. "I owe you an apology."

He frowned. "What the hell for?"

She stepped delicately through the snow, setting her feet carefully, over to a dark bush that grew in the unkempt backyard of The Chill. "Do you know what this is?"

Thoroughly confused, Cougar joined her to stare at the plant. "Not a damn clue."

"It's mistletoe."

The significance sank in slowly. "You? But I thought...Elayne...I..." But Toya would never do anything to harm him. He knew that like he knew that water was wet.

"I hired Elayne from K'Shaia," she confessed, mischief glittering in her eyes as she looked at him, for a moment the girl he had grown up with, delighted by her own craft. "And I spread the rumours about your – special Christmas gift. Then no one would think it strange if I kept close to you."

Blue might, he thought, but Blue was gone. Fed up with- "Did you tell those twins to pester Blue?"

Toya nodded, half-smiling. "Blue can't stand being around people like himself."

That was something to think about. Something to think about later.

"So you got rid of Blue," he mused, "and you made it so you could see me. But...why?"

Her smile faded, and in her eyes, he saw uncertainty. "Someone..." She cleared her throat, and started again, something hardening in her face. As if she had decided that now she had started, there was no point in doing this with half her heart. "Someone a lot wiser than he knows once told me that if you could believe in love at first sight, why not love at ninety-first."

He didn't know what to say.

But when she kissed him, he realised that he didn't have to say anything – that saying anything would have broken this moment that he'd spent years waiting for.

It was a tentative kiss, tender, disbelieving – and then he was pulling her closer, his hands stroking over the curve of her shoulders, the gentle arch of her back, her sides, the way he had wanted to for so long. So very long. She was slight, warm, moving subtly in his arms, shifting her body more deeply into his, until it was not at all tentative; just heat and wetness and years to make up for in this perfect, endless moment.

Finally, she drew back – or he did, he was never sure – and they stood staring at one another, the wind riffling strands of her hair across her face. Those moss-green eyes were solemn, full with twining emotions he couldn't comprehend.

"Why...why did you do that?" he said finally, his voice not quite his own; husky, uncertain.

Her answering smile was faint and sad. "I wanted to know what it would be like."

"And what was it like?"

He heard his own yearning in that question, and cursed himself for it. he didn't want this to be so painful; he wanted it to be that magical and breathtaking instant forever, drifting through an endless sparkling moment, even if he knew that simply wasn't the way the world worked.

She moved back from him, wrapping her arms around herself again, looking away. That hurt a little. "Better than I thought," she told him simply. "Like – like an amazing dream, the kind you wake up from smiling."

The warning was there in her voice, but he still had to ask. "But?"

"But still just a dream," she said, now gazing at him, the regret so clear in that pale, set face. "No matter how wonderful...not real."

"It could be," he whispered, stepping towards her to unwrap her arms from her body, and replace them with his. Her skin was frost-cool, and covered with goosebumps that he smoothed away with his fingers, holding her as carefully as if she was porcelain. "You know that."

"No," she said, but her voice was muffled against his neck, her breath a cloudy warmth. For one sweet second, he thought she might change her mind; her fingertips ran over the planes of his shoulders, the light and tender caress almost more profound, more torturous than if they were stood there naked.

And then she drew back again, and shook her head. "No, Cougar. If things had been different – if I hadn't chosen Pursang, you're what I would have had." She laughed, the sound harsh in the snow-thick silence. "I just wanted to know what it would have been like to have the dream – to have someone who would have loved me like I was everything. I wanted to feel normal again. I..."

She shut her eyes for a moment, and her voice held a rawness he knew no one else would ever hear.

"I wanted to be happy."

"And you'll walk away," he demanded, angry with her now. "Why do you think that you have to keep making sacrifices? Why can't you be happy? Do you think that just because you're part of the Furies you have to spend your time covered in blood, completely miserable? Vaje and Aspen aren't. Lance isn't. Even Ross has it better figured out, and he's about as stable as a radioactive isotope!"

Startlement made her face younger, and more vulnerable than he had seen her since she stepped into their darkling world. "I..."

"What you do is just a job," he said flatly. "It's a crap, ugly job, but you're changing things. Vaje, Lance, Ross – they all respected Aspen, but they didn't love him the way they love you. You have their loyalty. They trust you. Do you understand how rare that is? Don't you realise that you've changed them, and for the better?"

Wordless, she just stared at him. Could she really not see it? Didn't she realise that people were beginning to speak about the Furies differently? Nightfire and K'Shaia did the majority of the killings now. Pursang – the rumours had begun to speak of Pursang differently. Only a few rumours, only a few occasions, but it was the first time anyone had ever differentiated between the three.

"It's going to take time," he said softly. "The Night World doesn't like change. But don't be blind, Toya, things are changing, and because of you. Don't lose hope, please, don't. And don't – don't be unhappy when you don't have to."

Chatoya covered her face with her hands, and he thought for one gut-wrenching moment that she was crying, but then he realised she was breathing very hard, forcing herself not to. Unsure what to do, he stood and waited.

Her eyes were still suspiciously bright, but she gave him a watery smile. "I've almost forgotten," she confessed. "Everything before Pursang – it seems like someone else's life."

"It was yours," he said dryly. "It was pretty exciting, and I was there for a lot of it."

"You were. You always were." There was wonderment in her face, a lovely naivety. "How did you manage that?"

He smirked, putting on the Redfern arrogance like a cloak. "Superb timing."

"I wish it could have been different," she said.

He looked at her solemnly, so fragile there on the snowy lawn. Incessantly strong for the Furies, she had to be, and always calm in front of the others - was he the only person who saw her weaknesses? He felt proud, then, proud of that trust.

"It still can be." He held up a hand to hush her. "Maybe not now, Toya. But in the future. If you want me, I'll be here. You just have to come and find me. I'm yours." He didn't say those other words; he couldn't.

She smiled then, that sweet slow smile that lit up her face.

He grinned back, and held out a hand to her. "Come on, there's a horde of people inside waiting to swoon at the sight of me."

"So arrogant," she muttered, but as her fingers closed around his, they squeezed tight.

Maybe not now, he thought to himself. But yes – yes, I think, no, I know, in the future. And I can wait, because god knows, every minute will be worth it.

"Happy New Year," he said, pausing before they went back inside.

As the hubbub of the crowd washed over them, their fingers slipping apart, she gave him one last glance, and Cougar saw the stirrings of desire in her eyes, and a tenderness he had wanted to be directed at him for so very long.

As he eased into the chattering crowds, he missed her soft reply. "I think it will be."

But he didn't need to hear it. Not anymore.

_The rose in the bottle, the thorns in the bottom  
The stars surround me, the cold astounds me.  
And I cry cause the weather has gotten to me  
And I laugh at the people that I can't be  
All their lives, pretty pictures._

* * *

Thanks for reading! 


	3. Epilogue: January Frost

So, someone asked me not so very long ago if I would ever be updating this story. At the time, I said no. Then it came round to that time of year when I open the floor to requests and the lovely Christina asked for a scene which became this epilogue. I think it finishes off My December in better form than I originally left it, and I hope you enjoy it.

The lyrics come from Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII.

**Epilogue: January Frost**

_I do not love you - except because I love you;  
I go from loving you to not loving you  
from waiting to not waiting for you  
my heart moves from cold to fire._

The winter sun was distant. It gleamed in the morning sky like a silver coin, dipping between the spiky branches as she walked through the woods. Light, persistent rain dotted her and did nothing to diminish the bite in the air. The way was treacherous, and so she moved from tree to tree, supporting herself as beneath her feet, half-thawed ice crackled and snickered, but she did not fall.

It wasn't her season – part of her felt the promise of spring locked up tight in the ground and hungered to drag it free. It would be cruel though, and pointless. Time would win that battle for her. However there were others that only she could fight.

It was one such that brought Chatoya back here, uneasy, with a New Year's night weighing on her mind.

* * *

"Good morning!" announced Cougar Redfern with brilliant cheer as he strolled into Jepar's kitchen.

The shapeshifter raised a haggard face and groaned in reply before his forehead hit the table with a thump.

"Oh dear," Cougar said with unholy glee. "Are we a bit hungover?"

From where she was placidly dropping two large aspirin into a cup of tea, Alisha shot her boyfriend a pitying look. "We aren't. He is."

"There was something in the mulled wine," mumbled Jepar into the table. Nothing was visible but a mussed crown of blond hair and a hint of greenish pallor.

"Yes, your face," Alisha pointed out. "Honestly, Jay, you were guzzling it straight from the jug."

"You took my glass off me. What was I supposed to do?"

"Stop drinking."

"Oh. You didn't mention that bit." He twitched feebly. "Did you?"

"I did. I guess the acoustics in that jug just weren't good enough." She dumped the mug in front of him. "Or maybe you were too busy doing the twist."

"I twisted?" Jepar sounded slightly cheerier. "The night wasn't a complete waste then."

"Nah, you were just completely wasted," Cougar put in.

Alisha stared from one to the other, lips pursed. "Wait. What's wrong with this scene?"

Revealing gloriously bloodshot eyes, Jepar struggled from a flat-out slump into a mere slouch. "Cougar's never this chirpy before noon."

She gave a nod. "You're right. Where were you last night?" she shot at him so fast Cougar was tempted to duck. "You disappeared all of a sudden."

Part of him reveled in a secret, childlike delight. "I was otherwise occupied, babe."

"Meaning what?"

He gave her a brief, dazzling grin. "Meaning it's nobody's business but my own."

"Oh…" Jepar said suddenly, as if he had twigged. But he couldn't have: Cougar had been careful to top up his glass again and again, equally careful in the list of requests he gave the DJ which ensured that the shapeshifter would be horrifying everyone with his dance moves, and the rest of his friends would be occupied with his antics.

Alisha raised her eyebrows. "Oh?"

Jepar's eyes met his for a brief moment – and Cougar saw that somehow he knew. Anxiety gripped him.

"Oh?" Alisha repeated, more sharply. "Oh what?"

Silently he pleaded with Jepar, hoping he understood.

A brief flicker in his eyes; and then the shapeshifter clutched his skull with a thespian groan. "Oh, god, my head."

Exasperation swept away her suspicion. "It's entirely your own fault."

Well, Cougar thought. Not entirely. "Why don't you get Toya to heal him?"

"She's gone out for a walk." Alisha slanted a dubious look outside. "Just before you came down, actually."

"In the freezing cold and the rain," he said flatly, hurt. She was avoiding him, wasn't she? "Where?"

"The woods. She said something about clearing her head."

Head. Heart. Whatever. The implication was obvious.

In former times he would have let the bitterness overwhelm him. Let her go then, he would have decided, sullen. If she doesn't want me, fine. The urge was still there, hard to ignore. But it was overruled by his determination.

I waited years for that kiss. I'll wait years for another.

And in the merciless daylight, that probably scared her. It was no small vow: he already knew how tied she was by obligations great and small, how fraught her life had become. But he hadn't meant it to hang over her with the intensity of a threat – it was the truth, that was all. To him, it didn't alter their friendship a whit, but she probably didn't see it that way.

Sorry, babe, he thought. You're not getting rid of me that easily. "Then she could probably use a hand," he decided.

"Cougar-" Jepar croaked, but not quickly enough: the door was banging on the frame before he'd finished. "Damn."

"What?" Alisha said.

He grimaced. "You got it wrong. She didn't say she was going to clear her head. She said she was going to clear the air."

"It's practically the same," she said, puzzled.

He gave her a look that was far too sober. "No, it isn't."

It was the difference between one and two. It was monologue versus dialogue; Chatoya wasn't seeking solitude. She was seeking someone. And Jepar had the troubling thought that he knew just who that someone was, and why she was seeking him.

* * *

Winter had stripped the secrecy from the glade. It was a towering cage, black trunks and bare ground, razed by the season. In it, he had the air not of a prisoner but of an executioner.

Blue stood in its center, his skin as colourless and bleak as the sky above, his eyes dark and glittering like the frost that coated the ground. His stillness served only to emphasize his fury; he had the contained energy of a bomb, and she didn't doubt he was just as close to such casual devastation.

And yet for the first time, she felt that she was the one who held the power. One simple fact legitimized her.

She had hurt him, and she did not regret it.

And so she stood, a very ordinary girl in her long cream coat, bundled up against the chill but calm under his scrutiny.

She expected him to speak first. But he didn't. He looked at her with a gaze as analytical and impersonal as if they had never met. Weighed, measured, and found wanton, no doubt. She tilted her chin up and gave him look for look, her eyes as green and shadowed as if spring was waiting within her, winter already vanquished in her heart.

At last she could bear the hush no longer.

"What did you expect?" she challenged. "You've treated me appallingly. I'm an afterthought in your life, and one you clearly resent. You've undermined me, you've used me, you treat me as if I'm some kind of crime you're desperate that no one finds out. Honestly, Blue, what did you expect?"

"Better."

So soft and emotionless, the word struck her with a ferocity that all his anger could not have achieved. She gathered herself, not allowing it to rattle her.

"Me too. We were both disappointed."

"Only one of us, however, was unfaithful."

"Don't worry," she said sourly, "I'm just as surprised as you that it's me. After all, you saw the merits of infidelity as a weapon long ago."

* * *

Chatoya was easy to trace because among the myriad minds of Ryars Valley, she was now among the most powerful. Her presence had changed in the last few years, and far from the clear green wisp of power she had once been, time had added depth to her; she fell across the valley like a smoky green shadow, and he wondered how she had remained so little altered in character when her powers had become so vast and complex.

Cougar sped through the woods, need making him hasty.

He glimpsed her then. Stood tall, a blue scarf trailing down her back, her hair falling over it in a high, careless black ponytail. And beyond her…

Blue's eyes met his only for the merest moment, but it was enough to let Cougar know he had been seen.

He should have left then. It would have been smart.

* * *

"Is that what this is about?" he said coolly. His gaze skipped past her, as if the answer barely mattered. "Payback?"

"A kiss for a kiss?" She hadn't thought of it like that. It seemed so long ago now – it was so long ago. Years had passed since that simple, definitive betrayal. Yet one word would make this storm pass, because he had a killer's respect for revenge. One word, one lie. "No. It was a kiss for its own sake."

"Which was?" His voice had grown detached, lazy, and his eyelashes dropped over his gaze, shrouding his intentions. She felt a stab of fear.

"To taste what might have been." The metres between them seemed impassable. He was blade-slender, startlingly beautiful in the unforgiving light. No path she had walked today or would ever walk could be as simultaneously treacherous and scintillating. "To find out if it would have been enough."

He looked straight at her. His eyes were the deep, smoky gold of a furnace. He had never looked so like Cougar, and she had never felt the differences between them more keenly. "And would it?"

She hesitated, but only for a moment.

"No. Not yet."

For all that it was sweet and fierce, it was not you. Still you lull me in your moments of need, still you are vulnerable to me and me alone, and you are mine.

But not mine alone.

* * *

It was supposed to be a defeat, he knew. Mere confirmation that it was still Blue ruling her heart, he was still second choice and second best.

Cougar slid back behind the tree that shielded him and leaned against it, his bones watery. Fear had not driven her away this morning. He had not lost the friendship that he had come to treasure as much as any hope of something more. All the difficult conversations he had imagined dissipated beneath the reality: that almost nothing had changed.

Except, perhaps, that 'no' had become 'not yet'.

Two words that held a future in them.

* * *

"This is what I promised you," he said. His voice was quite even and controlled. "You knew it when this began. I told you no lies. I am what I am – and I am what I chose to be."

"And I chose you. Every day, I choose you again," she answered. "I even believe that you love me. But I don't think I'm your only love, and I don't think I'm dark or dazzling or cruel enough to make your heart my own."

Bemusement made his mouth soft, bending into a brief frown. "There is no one else."

"Yes," she said quietly. "I know that."

And unable to bear his derisive, uncomprehending eyes, she turned then and walked out of the glade. She did not look back – she didn't need to. The image of him burned on the back of her eyelids: a boy stood alone and fearless in a cage, unaware of the bars.

* * *

She was long gone, a patch of white vanishing among the darkness of the stripped wood. But Cougar hadn't moved from the tree that held his weight because he was waiting.

"I warned you."

The words were hard and sharp as chips of ice. He took a deep breath, then stepped out into the open and into the firing line.

"Yep," Cougar said as amiably as he could. Nothing was guaranteed to irk Blue more. "I ignored you."

Power swirled suddenly. He was hurled into the air – panic struck him, brief, chaotic, stealing all his instincts-

He smashed onto the rocky ground. The world was streaked with red and black and god, it hurt.

"Do you really think I won't kill you?" Blue said thoughtfully.

Cougar forced his eyes open. Now he had a headache to match Jepar's without the benefit of copious quantities of alcohol first. Under his blurred vision, his half-brother was pared down to an impossibly tall, black silhouette that loomed over him.

Light gleamed on a wooden blade.

It probably should have shocked sense into him. It only made him angry: he was getting very tired of being beaten up by his younger brother.

"You won't. You can't afford to." He began to get up. A foot slammed down between his shoulder blades and Cougar sprawled on the ground, fuming. "See," he continued doggedly, "if you kill me, you'll lose Toya. And you'll have to break your word, and it would seriously damage your reputation with the Furies."

"You're assuming any of those things matter to me."

And I'm right. I know it. You know it. "One of them does."

Blue's voice was right in his ear. Goosebumps crawled up his back at the thought of where the knife might be. "And if I were you, I would think myself exceptionally fortunate that is the case. You see, my witch was rather careless when she set the terms that protect you. She did not forbid me to kill you, maim you or even to hurt you. She merely forbade me to persecute you. So consider this, brother. You followed her here. You eavesdropped."

He felt the knife, slicing along his arm in a hot line that rapidly split into stinging pain. And then Blue had his arm, and was holding it flat against the unforgiving ground.

This was not good. Cougar shut his eyes, gathered his strength and aimed a mental blow at Blue that should have sent him reeling.

It vanished into nothing, as though his brother was a black hole with his own vast, indefatigable gravity.

"You," Blue continued as if he had hardly noticed, "did not listen."

The silence was ominous.

"You kissed her."

Agony exploded in his hand. He tried to jerk away, but couldn't – his palm was pinned by the blade.

"And you have forfeited any right you had to safety," purred Blue, smug, malicious.

The enormity of it sank in on him. He had good as handed himself to Blue to be used as leverage against Toya.

"Kill me then," he said flatly, hopelessly.

"And waste the opportunity? No, I don't think so."

The knife twisted with excruciating slowness. Cougar snarled, scrabbling to get up – and then it was withdrawn.

"I'd get to a doctor if I were you," Blue advised lazily. He spun the haft between his palms, and Cougar saw how rotten the wood was. "Splinters can be nasty things."

His hand throbbed unbearably. He felt an absolute fool. "Just like you."

"Do you think you could spare me the tedious insults?"

And then he knew just what to say, mimicking her down to perfection. "Not yet."

The look in Blue's eyes was empty and inhuman and bloodthirsty. And beneath the cruel January light, he saw the price of a kiss in the snow as if the future was laid bare before him.

He hoped it was worth paying.

* * *

She traced her path back through the glittering frost, quite oblivious to the cold or the passion she had inspired. Her mind was wrapped up with other, confused thoughts. Thoughts of the future lost, and the one left to her which frightened her so; which had driven her, for one fleeting night, to be loved without obligation, to be the wondrous world entire to one person as she could not be with Blue.

"There's no one else," he had said, not seeing what was manifestly true, perhaps unable to.

No, there is no one else. But there is death.

Only it can rouse the delight you find in cruelty and the call of blood, and inspire your calm, fond examination of murder in all its ugliness and its mystery. We two battle endlessly for you. There is no end. There is no respite.

And one day, I fear I will lose my battle. And I think – I know - that then, in the moment of my death, I will be the most beautiful thing in the universe to you, because at last your two great loves have met and reconciled. I will have lost, and you may feel some measure of regret, but you will never forget the moment when death and I were one and glorious, and so, ever chasing a second glimpse of perfection, hand it victory.

Grave, where is thy victory – with you, of course, without me.

_In this part of the story, I am the one who dies,  
the only one, and I will die of love  
because I love you, Love, in blood and fire.  
_

* * *

Thank you for reading! - Ki 


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